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Cops fired incendiary tear gas into a suspected killer’s hideout, igniting an inferno that helped end one of the most intense manhunts in California history, officials said today.
Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, and pursuing San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies were in a fierce gun battle yesterday when the accused killer took shelter inside a cabin near Big Bear Lake.
Dorner allegedly shot two deputies — one who later died — before SWAT officers surrounded the cabin.
Sheriff John McMahon insisted the flammable tear gas wasn’t fired to set a deadly fire.
“I can tell you, it was not on purpose,” McMahon said today. “We did not intentionally burn down that cabin to get Mr. Dorner out.”
The fallen deputy was identified today as 35-year-old Jeremiah MacKay, according to the Inland Empire Emerald Society — a non-profit that supports survivors of cops killed in duty.
Det. MacKay was on an early patrol this past Saturday morning when he told The Associated Press that Dorner could be anywhere.
“This one you just never know if the guy’s going to pop out, or where he’s going to pop out,” MacKay said.
“We’re hoping this comes to a close without more casualties. The best thing would be for him to give up.”
A SWAT team then came on the scene and was met with a “constant barrage of gunfire” from Dorner, a law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times.
Cops first fired traditional tear gas into the cabin, but that didn’t immediately bring a surrender, officials said.
That’s when they opted for the more powerful CS gas canisters, which can severely irritate a target’s eyes and create an extreme choking feeling. The gas also has a much high chance to ignite flames.
“He put himself in that position,” the lawman said, explaining the cops’ decision to use flammable gas. “There weren’t a lot of options.”
The cabin burned down and police recovered remains believed to be Dorner’s.
Investigators also found Dorner’s California driver’s license, further bolstering their belief the suspected killer is dead.
As the cabin went up in smoke, one gunshot was heard from inside. No one was spotted leaving the cabin.
“There’s a reasonable belief it’s the body of Christopher Dorner,” LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told CNN today.
Dorner, 33, had said in a lengthy manifesto that he expected to die in one final, violent confrontation with cops. And if the body discovered in that charred cabin is him, then that’s exactly what happened.
“This is really not a celebration,” LAPD Lt. Andrew Neiman said this morning, explaining the relief cops feel about Dorner’s apparent end.
LAPD officers used the Internet to monitor radio chatter during the firefight.
“It was horrifying to listen to that firefight and to hear those words. ‘Officer down’ is the most gut-wrenching experience that you can have as a police officer,” Neiman said.
Throughout the search for Dorner, LA police stood guard around the homes of 50 potential targets of the rogue officer.
By this morning, that protection detail had been reduced to about a dozen families, police said.
“Those [protection details] will remain in place … until that investigation in San Bernardino is concluded and we have a type of positive identification,” Neiman said. “We still have some individuals in this department in great fear.”
The apparent end came very close to where his trail went cold six days earlier when his burning pickup truck — with guns and camping gear inside — was abandoned with a broken axle on a fire road in the San Bernardino National Forest near the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake.
His footprints led away from the truck and vanished on frozen soil.
With no sign of him and few leads, police offered a $1 million reward to bring him to justice and end a “reign of terror.”
In his manifesto, Dorner had promised to bring “warfare” to the LAPD and their kin.
Just a few hours after police announced Tuesday that they had fielded more than 1,000 tips with no sign of Dorner, word came that a man matching his description had tied up two people in a Big Bear Lake cabin, stole their car and fled.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens, who were part of the search detail, spotted the purple Nissan that had been reported stolen going in the opposite direction and gave chase, department spokesman Lt. Patrick Foy said.
The driver looked like Dorner.
They lost the purple car after it passed a school bus and turned onto a side road, but two other Fish and Wildlife patrols turned up that road a short time later, and saw a white pickup truck speeding erratically toward them.
“He took a close look at the driver and realized it was the suspect,” Foy said.
It’s believed Dorner had just carjacked Rick Heltebrake, who escaped with his life and dog.
” `I don’t want to hurt you. Start walking and take your dog,’ ” Heltebrake quoted Dorner as saying.
Heltebrake grabbed his 3-year-old Dalmatian Suni and let Dorner take the truck. He heard gunfire moments later.
The carjacking victim said he and Dorner were both remarkably collected during the brief, tense face-off.
“He wasn’t wild-eyed, just almost professional,” he said. “He was on a mission.”
“It was clear I wasn’t part of his agenda and there were other people down the road that were part of his agenda,” Heltebrake added.
Once in Heltebrake’s truck, Dorner allegedly rolled down a window and opened fire, striking a warden’s truck more than a dozen times.
One of the wardens returned fire as Dorner rounded a curve in the road. It’s unclear if Dorner was wounded, but the stolen pickup careened off the road and crashed in a snow bank.
Dorner then ran to the cabin where he barricaded himself and shot it out with San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies.
The firefight with deputies happened shortly after 1:30 p.m. PST, and a local CBS news crew just happened to be near that final showdown.
The crew recorded audio of gunfire and these apparent screams from deputies:
“Burn it down!”
“Shoot the gas!”
“Get the gas!”
“Burning gas, burning gas!”
Until yesterday, authorities weren’t sure Dorner was still in Big Bear Lake, where his pickup was found within walking distance from the cabin where he hid.
Even door-to-door searches failed to turn up any trace of him in the quiet, bucolic neighborhood where children were playing in the snow last night.
With many searchers leaving town amid speculation he was long gone, the command center across the street was taken down Monday.
Ron Erickson, whose house is only about quarter mile away, said officers interrogated him to make sure he wasn’t being held hostage. Erickson himself had been keeping a nervous watch on his neighborhood, but he never saw the hulking Dorner.
“I looked at all the cabins that backed the national forest and I just didn’t think to look at the one across from the command post,” he said. “It didn’t cross my mind. It just didn’t.”
Police said Dorner began his run on Feb. 6 after they connected the slayings of a former police captain’s daughter and her fiance with his angry manifesto.
Dorner blamed LAPD Capt. Randal Quan for providing poor representation before the police disciplinary board that fired him for filing a false report.
Dorner, who is black, claimed in his online rant that he was the subject of racism by the department and was targeted for doing the right thing.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck, who initially dismissed Dorner’s allegations, said he would reopen the investigation into his firing — not to appease the ex-officer, but to restore confidence in the black community, which had a long fractured relationship with police that has improved in recent years.
Dorner vowed to get even with those who had wronged him as part of his plan to reclaim his good name.
“You’re going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!” the rant said. “You have awoken a sleeping giant.”
Dorner allegedly killed Capt. Quan’s daughter, Cal State Fullerton assistant women’s basketball coach Monica Quan, and her fiancee Keith Lawrence on Feb. 3.
The couple was found fatally shot inside their car in Irvine, Calif.
Dorner was named as a suspect the night of Feb. 6 and hours later, the 6-foot, 270-pounder former cop — described as armed and “extremely dangerous” — tried unsuccessfully to steal a boat in San Diego to flee to Mexico.
After leaving a trail of evidence, Dorner headed north where he opened fire on two patrol cars in Riverside County, shooting three cops, authorities said.
He allegedly killed Riverside police officer Michael Crain, who was in his squad car stopped at a red light.
Police in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada and along the US-Mexico border went on high alert looking for the former officer.
Several hours after Crain’s slaying, Dorner’s burning truck was found in the rugged Big Bear mountains, about 80 miles east of LA.
Only a short distance from the truck, he spent his final days with a front-row seat to the search mobilized right outside.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.